“…Congratulations! Management is ready to adopt Agile. Soon, we shall be an Agile Team. We'll adopt Agile way of work, stop traditional practices & become a high performing team …”
These talks from a team is quite exciting as they are about to start Agile Adoption Journey. But, is it really that simple as it sounds? Is this change quite linear? Is there any challenge to achieve this change?
I believe, CHANGE always comes from CHALLENGE; Only need is to attack the core of CHALLENGE i.e. LLE. The same is true with Agile Journey also.
I, as a SM, helped my team in their Agile journey in these 3 steps below:
L – Losing
L – Love
E – Educate
Until team understands what they are losing now & why Agile needed, the adoption will not be taken seriously and the efforts may not come from bottom of the heart. So firstly i'll discuss the current problems & possible reason of it. In past, I did this by having sessions. Mostly teams had problems like:
Here we should also understand that SM is an enabler. It is the team who will make efforts to bring the change & it can be done only when team has reason, hope & willingness to do so.
Step -2: Make people ‘Love’ Agile
The second step is to let Team know how Agile can solve these problems. But if we just reiterate Manifesto & Principles, people might lose interest & find it bookish. We need to present agile in a way that they may correlate it with their problems. Personally, I wanted them to Love Agile & so I took below initiatives:
A) Use Interesting Examples:
B) Concept clarity by Games & Story Telling:
C) Touching the Nerves:
Above #A & #B helped team to understand soul of Agile & by now they started talking Agile. Now, it was the time to showcase how Agile can solve their problems which we discussed in “Losing” section. We had many QnA sessions on how Agile Way can help us, like:
Step -3: ‘Educate’ people to Execute
Now, last step is educating & helping team to implement practices. It is Bi-Dimensional approach which focuses on – Doing Agile (adopt practices) & Being Agile (change mindset by cultivating values & principles).
I believe we can’t avoid any of it. ‘Doing’ is important to maintain the Deliveries & RoI and ‘Being’ is important to transform the culture & mindset of team. Our Agile Adoption efforts included both. I trained, coach & teach my teams on these by organizing dedicated interactive sessions.
Below are few of my Articles which focus on certain Agile Practices. I explained the core of these to Team in workshops:
The idea is to make Team able to understand & execute practices and at the same time develop psychologies & values in their mind.
Conclusion
In last 5 years, I worked with many teams & I realized these 3 steps are the core to help any team in its agile journey. It is not the journey from Traditional to Agile, rather it is the journey of Earning Trust & Cultivating Team Spirit which can be achieved by practising Values, understanding Principles & executing Best Practices. Once Netflix CEO said -
"Do not tolerate brilliant jerk. The cost of teamwork is too high." Believe me, I found it so helpful in building an Agile Team.
As SM I helped many teams in their Agile journey but I believe:
“A SM is successful only when her/his team is in condition when SM is not required.”
And so my journey (to attack LLE in CHALLENGE = CHANGE) goes on ...
These talks from a team is quite exciting as they are about to start Agile Adoption Journey. But, is it really that simple as it sounds? Is this change quite linear? Is there any challenge to achieve this change?I believe, CHANGE always comes from CHALLENGE; Only need is to attack the core of CHALLENGE i.e. LLE. The same is true with Agile Journey also.
I, as a SM, helped my team in their Agile journey in these 3 steps below:
L – Losing
L – Love
E – Educate
Step -1: Let Team realize what they are ‘Losing’ now
- Missing continuous & timely deliveries – mainly due to either under-estimating the work or scope change during the development.
- Pressure to make changes in the product – Stakeholder wants the changes in the product at the later stage of development which is difficult.
- Unresolved dependencies & no coordination with stakeholders – The questions raised to stakeholders, remain unanswered for long time & team is not able to work which results in delay.
- Fear in releasing the product – Product will work or not in customer’s environment? Release is done at very later stage.
- Stakeholders never satisfied – Interesting point. They said it does not matter how big efforts we make, we get criticism & dissatisfaction only.
- No time to learn new technologies – Deadline are so narrow that they never get time to explore new technologies & way of doing things.
- Lack of Transparency – From top to bottom, everyone had this feeling with each other. No one knows how anyone else is adding value to the product.
- Being treated like Machines & Psychological unsafe environment – We don’t have “our” time. Questioning on why this much time is required to do particular task. No leave can be availed due to deadlines. Due to unnecessary questioning & conflict, people stopped even putting their points. They just follow commands.
Here we should also understand that SM is an enabler. It is the team who will make efforts to bring the change & it can be done only when team has reason, hope & willingness to do so.
Step -2: Make people ‘Love’ Agile
The second step is to let Team know how Agile can solve these problems. But if we just reiterate Manifesto & Principles, people might lose interest & find it bookish. We need to present agile in a way that they may correlate it with their problems. Personally, I wanted them to Love Agile & so I took below initiatives:
A) Use Interesting Examples:
- Bollywood - Took example how bollywood embraced change & showed what is happening in society & what society wants:
- 1910s – first movie “Raja Harishchandra”
- 1950-60s – Landlord related movies - MotherIndia, Do Ankhe Barah Hath
- 1960-80s – Unemployment, Poverty - Angry Young Man movies
- 1990-2000 – LPG -We started thinking liberally & experienced generation gap (love stories & parent objections kind of movies).
- 2000s - Corporate culture, dis-satisfaction in the society - Page-3, Life in a Metro
- 2010s - WebSeries with much bolder content because it is the need of time.
- Demonetisation – One night, Demonetisation (Nov’16) was announced. Country saw currency issues for few months. If I was developing my ecommerce website with Indian culture of cash-on-delivery option, I might not be able to have business at that time. In Agile, I can add other payment options in my website whenever I want. Showed how Paytm blossom during this time.
- http://www.scrumyourwedding.com/ – wedding-planners using scrum.
- Mythology – Took Incarnations example. How the complexity in world increase and incarnations become more & more superior to tackle the situation.
- Comparisons – Orkut vs FB, BB vs Samsung, Kodak vs Nikon – Why One see growth & other closed?
B) Concept clarity by Games & Story Telling:
- Flip Coin Game – light weight game to demonstrate iterative delivery concept.
- Calligraphy Game – game to focus on completing the things.
- Ham-n-eggs - Story to showcase difference between involvement & commitment and relation to Agile Teams
- Water Journey from Underground to Glass (Different Analogies)
- Groundwater = Product Backlog,
- Tank on roof = Sprint Scope
- Filtered Water in RO = Increment
- If we take water in glass = Deployed to customer.
- I highlighted, if ground water is not available, we might not have drinking water. Same way, if product backlog is not maintained, it will directly impact the delivery.
- And many more...
C) Touching the Nerves:
Above #A & #B helped team to understand soul of Agile & by now they started talking Agile. Now, it was the time to showcase how Agile can solve their problems which we discussed in “Losing” section. We had many QnA sessions on how Agile Way can help us, like:
- Maintain Transparency by Having a Kanban board and see the journey of product
- Release Schedule practice will help in Continuous & timely deliveries. Eventually, we achieved this.
- Highlight how can we facilitate changes in the product. Showcase the importance of scrum events (Planning & Review), refinement meetings.
- How Agile Practices focus on Coordination & collaboration with stakeholder. It is easier to resolve the dependencies.
- Explained that Stakeholders are not satisfied because they don’t get what they need even if the product follows the signed contract. The reason is, expectations change with the time and so we need changes in our product.
- I personally felt that, Most of the members complaint regarding estimates. They do not get required time to do their task or they are asked to cut-down the estimates. I made them understand Estimates, Velocity, story point in a very interesting story-telling way.
- Finally, when we discussed Scrum Values, it was like last nail in coffin. It motivated team towards Agile & Team looked confident, hopeful and dedicated to Agile after these discussion.
Step -3: ‘Educate’ people to Execute
Now, last step is educating & helping team to implement practices. It is Bi-Dimensional approach which focuses on – Doing Agile (adopt practices) & Being Agile (change mindset by cultivating values & principles).I believe we can’t avoid any of it. ‘Doing’ is important to maintain the Deliveries & RoI and ‘Being’ is important to transform the culture & mindset of team. Our Agile Adoption efforts included both. I trained, coach & teach my teams on these by organizing dedicated interactive sessions.
- Doing Agile Workshops - Explain Framework, Events, Role & Responsibilities, best practices in detail.
- Being Agile Workshops - Explain Scrum Values, Principles, Empiricism, Transparency, Psychological Safety, Transforming the culture and Earning Trust.
- Setup Agile CoE & CoP - Setup dedicated environment & spaces where people can Talk Agile, Practice Agile, Discuss their problems and Learn.
- Agile Maturity Assessment - Prepare Agile Maturity Assessment which can be taken on regular basis & highlight the improvement areas in the team.
Below are few of my Articles which focus on certain Agile Practices. I explained the core of these to Team in workshops:
The idea is to make Team able to understand & execute practices and at the same time develop psychologies & values in their mind.
Conclusion
In last 5 years, I worked with many teams & I realized these 3 steps are the core to help any team in its agile journey. It is not the journey from Traditional to Agile, rather it is the journey of Earning Trust & Cultivating Team Spirit which can be achieved by practising Values, understanding Principles & executing Best Practices. Once Netflix CEO said -"Do not tolerate brilliant jerk. The cost of teamwork is too high." Believe me, I found it so helpful in building an Agile Team.
As SM I helped many teams in their Agile journey but I believe:
“A SM is successful only when her/his team is in condition when SM is not required.”
And so my journey (to attack LLE in CHA
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